System and method for maintaining a common sense of time on a network segment

ABSTRACT

The system has a control center, a time master device and a plurality of distributed, time slave field devices in synchronization with a master clock of the time master device. The time master device periodically transmits a time distribution data unit. Each time slave field device has a timer adjustment element, a fixed rate clock and a variable clock. The timer adjustment element calculates a frequency ratio between the master clock and the fixed rate clock and uses the frequency ratio to calculate adjustment coefficients to adjust a local sense of time for each field device, such that a time stamp of each field device is synchronized to the master clock.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to timing in a process control network.More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and methodfor maintaining a common sense of time among devices in a segment of aprocess control packet based network.

In industrial processes, and particularly in control systems, datatransmitted over the network may be critical or not. Critical data isdata that is considered valid only for a limited period of time.Typically, such data represents real-time measurements and/or controlinformation and is considered time-constrained by the process. Allprocessing of such data, including both computing and transmission, mustbe carried out in a bounded time. Processing of non-critical data isless time-sensitive.

Non-time-constrained data involves data transmitted over the network inwhich a delay on the respective processing has no effect on the properoperation of the manufacturing process or on the quality of theproducts. Nevertheless, such data typically includes timing informationso that the control system can monitor the timeliness (e.g. the timeintervals and timing relationships) of various transactions andprocesses on the control network.

While devices on the packet based network (e.g. Foundation Fieldbus)typically have their own clocks for maintaining time, due to differencesin the clocks and to distances between devices, it is difficult tosynchronize precisely the clocks' signals between the control system andthe various devices across the entire segment.

The purpose of the time synchronization on the segment is to provide ashared, approximately synchronized, internal time reference for allconnected devices. Generally, the time synchronization includes both amonotonically increasing component and an offset component. Themonotonically increasing component increases with time beginning with avalue of zero at the startup of the local end system. The offsetcomponent is a value that, when added to the monotonically increasingcomponent, causes the sum to be approximately equal to the correspondingsums of other correctly-functioning devices on the segment.

Conventionally, to maintain a common sense of time among the variousdevices on a segment of a process control network, one of the devices onthe segment serves as a time master, sending time updates to the otherdevices on the segment, known as time slaves. The time slaves then usethe time updates to synchronize their own “sense of time” to that of thetime master. However, since the devices are physically separateentities, their internal clocks will not run at exactly the same rate asthat of the time master.

To account for timing differences, the internal clock of each slavedevice must be scaled so that the devices can maintain a sense of timethat is synchronized to the time master. In the case of a FoundationFieldbus network, this scale factor for each device must be sufficientlyaccurate to meet the maximum phase-tracking error specified in theFoundation Fieldbus Datalink Protocol Specification, ANSI/ISA-S50.02(1997), section 11.3a. Additionally, the scale factor must be applied tothe internal clock of the device each time the device's sense of time isread.

Conventional systems implement the time scaling in software, therebyincurring software processing overhead each time the sense of time isread. The software overhead can be significant since the scale factor isa fixed-point, or potentially a floating-point number.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A process control system has a control center, a time master device anda plurality of time slave field devices in network communication withone another. The time master has a master clock and each field devicehas a local clock and a timer adjustment element. The time masterperiodically transmits timing information from the master clock to thefield devices over the network. Each field device calculates adjustmentcoefficients according to the difference in rates between the masterclock and the local clock, and adjusts an output clock signal and a timestamp as needed to synchronize the local clock to the master clock.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a time master device and timeslave devices on a process control network.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a Time Distribution (TD) data link protocoldata unit (DLPDU).

FIG. 3A is a block diagram of the formation of a time distribution datalink protocol data unit with respect to the time master device.

FIG. 3B is a block diagram of the time distribution data link protocoldata unit of FIG. 3A with respect to the receiving slave device.

FIG. 3C is a block diagram illustrating the time delay betweentransmission and receipt of the time distribution data link protocoldata unit.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of time circuit elements of a slave deviceaccording to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 5A and 5B are timing diagrams illustrating the method forsynchronizing the slave device clock circuitry with the time master.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flow diagram for synchronizing the slave devices tothe master device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows a industrial control system 10 having a control center 12connected via a homerun cabling 14 to a plurality of field devices. Onefield device serves as a time master 16, periodically sending timeupdates to the other devices on the Fieldbus segment via the cabling 14.The other field devices on the segment are time slaves 18, which utilizethe periodic time updates to synchronize their sense of time to that ofthe time master 16. The homerun cable 14 extends in phantom and anadditional time slave 18 is also shown in phantom to illustrate that thehomerun cabling 14 may be extended and field devices 18 may be added toextend the control network as needed.

As previously mentioned, the time master 16 and the time slaves 18 areboth field devices. For the purpose of the following discussion, theterm “field device” refers to any device that performs a function in adistributed control system, including all devices currently known in thecontrol art. Generally, each field device 16, 18 includes a transducerand/or actuator. A transducer is understood to mean either a device thatgenerates an output signal based on a physical input or that generates aphysical output based on an input signal. Typically, a transducertransforms an input into an output having a different form. Often, onesystem provides power to actuate a transducer, which in turn suppliespower usually in another form to a second system. Types of transducerstypically include various analytical equipment and sensors, pressuresensors, thermistors, thermocouples, strain gauges, flow transmitters,level transmitters, valve actuators/positioners, positioners actuators,solenoids, indicator lights, and the like.

Generally, each field device 16, 18 includes an internal clock. Indistributed control systems, it is desirable to achieve systemsynchronization to ensure the correct timing of events and of controlefforts, such that the field devices 16,18 have a common sense of time.However, since the field devices are independent from one another, theirclocks are not necessarily synchronized. “The maximum a synchronism inthe Fieldbus-shared sense of time determines the coarseness or finenessof such shared activities as distributed time-based scheduling anddistributed sequence-of-events determination.” See Fieldbus Standard forUse in Industrial Control Systems Part 4: Data Link ProtocolSpecification, SP50.02 (1997), section 11.3(a), p.283. The Data LinkProtocol specification, section 11.3a, defines eight classes of timesynchronization, ranging from 1 microsecond to 1 second. While thespecific level of granularity of the time-synchronization of a fieldbusnetwork depends on its specific requirements and implementation, thefield devices must maintain a “sense of time” relative to the timemaster that is accurate enough to meet the maximum phase-tracking erroraccording to the selected level of granularity.

FIG. 2 illustrates a standard time distribution (TD) DLPDU 20, which istransmitted over the homerun cabling 14 by the time master 16 to enablethe time slaves 18 on the local link to coordinate and to synchronizethe rates of advance of their senses of data-link time (DL-Time). The TDDLPDU is a specific type of DLPDU that is transmitted on the local linkby the time master 16 either upon receipt of a token from a Compel Time(CT) DLPDU or at appropriate intervals when the time master 16 holds thescheduler token.

In general, a TD DLPDU is comprised of several fields: a preamble field,a Start Delimiter (SD) field, a Frame Control (FC) field, a SourceAddress field, a Link Originating DL-Time field, a DL-Time Qualityfield, a DL-Time Offset field (defined by “FIELDBUS STANDARD FOR USE ININDUSTRIAL CONTROL SYSTEMS PART 4: DATA LINK PROTOCOL SPECIFICATION”,Approved Jan. 6, 1998, hereinafter referred to as “DLP §”, section8.6c), a DL-Time field (DLP § 8.6d), a DL-Time Adjust field (DLP §8.6e),a Frame Check Sequence (FCS), and an end delimiter (ED). The FrameControl (FC) field consists of one octet, which specifies the type ofDLPDU, and in the case of a TD DLPDU, the FC field includes a number offractional-octet parameters known as frame-control subfields.

The Link Originating DL-Time field represents the DL-time of thetransmitting field device, always the time master 16. The DL-TimeQuality field represents the multi-partite quality of the time slave 18,the time master 16 and the path of the time distribution on the locallink. The DL-Time Offset field records the signal offset (difference)between DL-time and the local link scheduling time.

The DL-Time field is generated by the time-stamp upon transmission ofthe Start Delimiter (SD). Finally, the DL-Time Adjust is the timebetween the DL-Time field time stamp and the end of transmission (EOT),such that the sum of the DL-Time field and the DL-Time adjust field isthe time at EOT.

As shown in FIG. 3A, the DLPDU 20 (labeled as 20A to distinguish thetransmitted DLPDU 20 from the received DLPDU 20, labeled as 20B) isgenerated by the time master 16, sometimes referred to as the linkactive scheduler (LAS). When the time master transmits a TD DLPDU, thefollowing events occur. Transmission begins by sending the Preamble andSD fields. As shown, a Start Delimiter (SD) causes a start of message(SOM) signal. The SOM signal causes a data-link timer (LAS) 22 to copyits current time into a time stamp register 24, which is in turn storedin the DL-Time field of the DLPDU 20A. In addition, the DL-Time Adjustfield is set such that the sum of the DL-Time and DL-Time Adjust fieldsis the time at the end of transmission. Remaining fields of DLPDU 20Aare then transmitted on the local link.

In FIG. 3B, the receiving field device or time slave 18 detects theDLPDU 20 (labeled as 20B). The time slave device 18 stores the DLPDUdata in a receive first input first output register (receive FIFO). Atthe moment the ED is received, an EOM time stamp 30 is taken from thereceiver's Data Link Timer 26. The time slave device 18 then reads thedata from the receive FIFO and processes the end of message (EOM) timestamp by comparing the EOM time stamp with the adjusted DL-Time in theTD DLPDU. A signal from a variable clock (shown in FIG. 4) adjusts thelocal time of the data-link timer 26 to be synchronized with the timemaster 16. The objective of this time adjustment process is to ensurethat the local time of the slave device 18 is as close as possible tothe time on the local link, according to the time master 16.Specifically, the slave device 18 updates the quality of DL-Time, theDL-Time Offset, the local link scheduling time offset, and the nodetimer frequency by comparing the local time variables with thecorresponding fields of the received DLPDU 20A (see DLP §9.4.1.3) Suchcomparisons serve to detect changes either in the reference source forthe time or in the time distribution path.

As shown in FIG. 3C, the time difference between the transmission of theDLPDU 20A and reception of the DLPDU 20B represents a time delay. Thistime delay is the delay through the cabling 14 along with any delaythrough the Fieldbus. Devices can use the Round-trip-delay query (RQ)and the Round-trip-delay Reply (RR) DLPDUs to measure the delay betweenthe time master 16 (LAS) device and the time slaves 18. The slave device18 determines if its local reference of Data-Link time (e.g. its sharedsense of time) is running fast or slow with respect to the time master16, by adding the DL-Time to the DL-Time Adjustment stored in thetransmitted TD DLPDU by the time master 16 and by comparing theresulting sum with the time at which the End of Message time stamparrived.

As shown in FIG. 4, the slave device 18 contains timer and timingadjustment elements. Specifically, upon receipt of a TD DLPDU from thecabling 14 (or from the Fieldbus network), the timer adjustment element32 reads the time stamp values from the End of Message (EOM) time stampregister 30. The timer adjustment element 32 calculates adjustmentcoefficients, which are passed to a variable clock 34.

The variable clock 34 receives the adjustment coefficients and a fixedrate clock signal from an internal clock 36 of the time slave 18, andgenerates an adjusted clock signal, which is passed to the data linktimer 26, which updates the EOM time stamp register and outputs theadjusted clock signal.

The variable clock 34 is a variable speed hardware clock having a fixedrate clock input (Fixed_clock_in), a variable rate clock output and twointeger parameters, add and subtract. The variable clock 34 receives thefixed rate clock input signal from the internal clock 36 of the slavedevice 18. The variable clock 34 applies an algorithm (shown withrespect to the timing diagrams in FIGS. 5A and 5B) to the fixed rateclock input signal based on the add and subtract parameters. Generally,the variable clock 34 produces one output clock pulse for every twofixed rate clock input pulses. In addition, the add (a) and subtract (s)parameters are used to insert additional and remove pulses from theoutput clock signal. The algorithm is as follows: for every “a” pulse,insert one extra pulse in the output clock signal, and for every “s”pulse, remove one pulse.

The resulting output clock signal produced by the variable clock 34 runsat a long-term rate of$\frac{{Fixed\_ clock}{\_ in}}{2}*{F\left( {{Add},{Subtract}} \right)}$where${F\left( {{Add},{Subtract}} \right)} = {1 + \frac{1}{Add} - {\frac{1}{Subtract}.}}$The resulting output clock signal is used to adjust and maintain thesense of time of the time slave 18. More specifically, the resultingoutput clock signal is used to synchronize the clock rates of data linktimer 26 of the time slave device 18 with the time rate of the timemaster 16 on the local link.

The timer adjustment element 32 may be implemented in software or inhardware or a combination of both. In a preferred embodiment, the timeradjustment element 32 is a software component stored in the firmware ofthe slave device 18. Whether implemented in hardware or in software, thetimer adjustment element 32 generally calculates the add and subtractparameters such thatF(F′ _(Add)(rate), F′ _(Subtract)(rate))=rate+rate_errorwhere the rate error is the error between the actual rate and therequested rate, resulting from rounding errors during the calculation ofthe add and subtract parameters. Generally, the time slave 18 mustignore its local sense of time and make adjustments to correspond withthat of the time master 16.

By updating the EOM time stamp register 30 with the hardware scaled oradjusted clock signal, time stamping does not incur software overhead.Further, by using a variable clock to control the time of the data linktimer 26 of the time slave 18, software resources are not used for timescaling when reading the sense of time of the time slave device 18.Instead, software is used to calibrate the add and subtract variables,resulting in a hardware time adjustment, allowing all scaling to beperformed in hardware. Software overhead is only incurred when the timerate must be changed. Since the time rate typically changes much lessfrequently than the sense of time is requested (e.g. time stamping isrequired), the overall software overhead is minimal. As a result,software processing clock cycles are conserved, which can then be usedin other ways, such as to perform other operations or to assist in dataprocessing or grooming of the data.

As shown in FIGS. 5A and 5B, when the add pulse signal is logic high,the resulting output signal from the variable clock is two closelyspaced pulses. As shown in FIG. 5A, between 1320 and 1325 microseconds,both an add pulse and a subtract pulse input are presented to thevariable clock, resulting in a variable clock output having two closelyspaced pulses followed by a gap between pulses that is greater than theclock frequency of the fixed rate input clock represented by the phase 2clock. The subtract pulse signal shifts to logic high slightly after theadd pulse signal, resulting in a subtraction of the next pulse in thesequence.

As shown in FIG. 5B, at the 1400 microsecond mark, a subtract pulsesignal goes to logic high, resulting in the elimination or absence of avariable clock output pulse corresponding to the phase 2 clock pulse atthe same position. The resulting output clock signal is then passed tothe data link timer 26 (shown in FIG. 4), to update the sense of time ofthe time slave device 18.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an embodiment of the process used by thetimer adjustment element 32 of FIG. 4 for calculating the add andsubtract parameters. This process may be implemented in software orfirmware in the time slave device 18 or in hardware. In general, thetimer adjustment element 32 checks for boundary conditions (e.g. afrequency ratio of less than 0.5, of exactly 1, or of greater than 2),calculates the clock coefficients, and swaps the coefficients if thefrequency ratio is less than 1.

As shown, the TD DLPDU is received. (Step 38). The timer adjustmentelement 32 calculates the frequency ratio of the time master 16 clocksignal over the time slave 18 fixed rate clock signal. (step 40). Thetimer adjustment element 32 then calculates the deviation of thefrequency ratio from the ideal ratio of 1.0. (step 42). The deviation iscalculated according to the following equation:deviation=frequency_ratio−1.

The timer adjustment element 32 tests whether the deviation was equal tozero (step 44). If the deviation is equal to zero, then the timeradjustment element 32 passes zero valued add and subtract parameters tothe variable clock 34, making no change to the output clock signal ofthe time slave 18 (step 46). However, if the deviation is not equal tozero, then the timer adjustment element 32 tests for boundary conditions(step 48).

If the frequency ratio is greater than two (step 50) (the upper boundarycondition), then the timer adjustment element 32 sets the add parameterequal to 1 and the subtract parameter equal to zero and passes them tothe variable clock 34. (step 52). If the frequency ratio is not greaterthan 2 (e.g. frequency ratio is less than or equal to 1), then the timeradjustment element 32 tests if the frequency ratio is less than 0.5. Ifthe frequency ratio is greater than +0.5, then the frequency ratio isbetween +0.5 and 2 (within the boundary conditions), and the timeradjustment element 32 sets the deviation equal to its absolute value(step 56). If the frequency ratio is less than +0.5 (the lower boundarycondition), the timer adjustment element 32 sets the add parameter equalto zero and the subtract parameter equal to 2 (step 58).

Finally, the add and subtract parameter values and the calculateddeviation of the frequency ratio from the ideal frequency are processed(step 60) according to the following substeps: $\begin{matrix}{{{{Subtract\_ Adjust} = {\max\quad{integer}\quad{value}\quad{of}\quad{subtract}}}{{coefficient}\quad\left( {65535\quad{in}\quad{the}\quad{preferred}\quad{embodiment}} \right)}}\quad} & \left. 1 \right) \\{{Add\_ Adjust} = \left\lbrack \frac{Subtract\_ Adjust}{1 + \left( {{Subtract\_ Adjust}*{deviation}} \right)} \right\rbrack} & \left. 2 \right) \\{{Subtract\_ Adjust} = \left\lbrack \frac{Add\_ Adjust}{1 - \left( {{Add\_ Adjust}*{deviation}} \right)} \right\rbrack} & \left. 3 \right)\end{matrix}$

If the frequency ratio is less than one, then the values of theAdd_Adjust and the Subtract_Adjust calculations are swapped and passedto the variable clock (Step 62). Otherwise, the swapping step is skippedand the Add_Adjust and the Subtract_Adjust calculations are passeddirectly to the variable clock 34 of the time slave device 18. (Step64).

As previously discussed, the software overhead associated with timeoffsets and DL time adjustments is greatly reduced by implementing thetime scaling such that software overhead is only incurred when the timerate changes. Since the time rate changes infrequently relative to thefrequency with which the time stamp of the time slave device 18 is used,the overall software overhead is minimal.

In general, the rate error of the system is minimized around the nominalscale value of 1.0. The scale factor range is limited from 0.5 to 2.0;however, the scale factors for the Foundation Fieldbus devices aresignificantly smaller than the maximum range stated (on the order ofless than 1 percent). In this range, the rate error is less than 6 partsper billion, significantly lower than the worst case maximum phasetracking error of 12.5 parts per million specified in the FieldbusFoundation specification.

More importantly, while the rate error is much less than the worst casemaximum phase tracking error of the specification, the lower rate erroris achieved in hardware rather than software, and with a minimalsoftware footprint. By minimizing the software overhead, the presentinvention frees up clock cycles, which would otherwise be used to scalethe sense of time for the time slave device 18, for use in otherprocesses.

Although the present invention has been described with reference topreferred embodiments, workers skilled in the art will recognize thatchanges may be made in form and detail without departing from the spiritand scope of the invention. For example, although the invention has beendescribed in the context of a Foundation Fieldbus network, the inventionis applicable more generally to other packet based networks as well.

1. A method for time synchronization of field devices on a network of adistributed control system, the method comprising: transmittingperiodically timing information from a master clock to the field devicesover the network of the distributed control system; and adjusting anoutput clock signal frequency and a time stamp of each field device as afunction of the periodically transmitted timing information and anoutput clock signal local to each field device.
 2. The method of claim 1wherein the step of adjusting comprises: calculating a frequency ratiobased upon the periodically transmitted timing information and theoutput clock signal; determining an add and a subtract parameteraccording to the frequency ratio; and varying an output of a variableclock using the add and the subtract parameters to produce the outputclock signal.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein a period betweentransmissions of the timing information varies.
 4. The method of claim 1wherein the step of adjusting comprises: determining adjustmentparameters; generating the output clock signal with a nominal rate ofone output pulse for every two input pulses of the fixed rate inputclock signals; and adding and subtracting pulses from the output clocksignal based upon the adjustment parameters.
 5. The method of claim 1wherein the time stamp of each field device is synchronized to themaster clock so that reading from the time stamp does not require timescaling in software.
 6. A method of synchronizing a local sense of timeof each of a plurality of field devices to a clock of a master fielddevice on a segment of a control network using a time distribution dataunit, the method comprising: detecting the time distribution data uniton the segment of the control network; calculating a frequency ratiobetween the local sense of time of a field device and a sense of time ofthe master field device; and adjusting as necessary the sense of time ofthe field device according, to the frequency ratio.
 7. The method ofclaim 6 further comprising: testing the frequency ratio against boundaryconditions of the field device.
 8. The method of claim 6 wherein thestep of adjusting comprises: adding and subtracting variable pulses froma sequence of clock pulses generated by a variable clock based upon thefrequency ratio.
 9. The method of claim 6 wherein the sense of time ofthe field device is maintained by an output clock signal.
 10. The methodof claim 6 wherein a frequency ratio equal to one results in noadjustment to the sense of time of the field device.
 11. The method ofclaim 6 further comprising: time stamping subsequently received datapackets in hardware without having to scale a local sense of time insoftware.
 12. A process control system having a common sense of time,the system comprising: a control network; a time master device incommunication with the control network and having a master clock forgenerating a master clock signal, the time master device forperiodically transmitting a time distribution data unit representativeof the master clock signal; and a plurality of time slave devices incommunication with the control network, each time slave device having alocal clock, and a time adjustment element for adjusting the local clockaccording to a frequency ratio between the master clock signal and anoutput clock signal of the local clock.
 13. The process control systemof claim 12 wherein the time adjustment element is implemented insoftware.
 14. The process control system of claim 12 wherein the timeadjustment element is implemented as a combination of hardware andsoftware components.
 15. The process control system of claim 12 whereinthe local clock includes a fixed rate clock for providing input clockpulses and a variable clock for producing the output clock signal basedupon the input clock pulses and adjustment inputs from the timeadjustment element.
 16. The process control system of claim 15 whereinthe time adjustment element calculates adjustment coefficients for useby the variable clock, and wherein the variable clock and selectivelyadds and subtracts pulses from a sequence of pulses according to theadjustment coefficients.
 17. The process control system of claim 15wherein the output clock signal is substantially synchronized with themaster clock signal.
 18. A method for reducing time processing cycles indistributed field devices of a process control network, the methodcomprising: calculating adjustment coefficients for each field deviceaccording to a difference in frequencies between a local clock of eachfield device and a master clock of a time master device on the processcontrol network; and adjusting a sense of time of each field device asneeded to synchronize a sense of time of each field device with the timemaster device.
 19. The method of claim 18 further comprising:transmitting a time distribution data unit from the time master to thedistributed field devices before the step of calculating.
 20. The methodof claim 18 wherein a time stamp of each field device is synchronized tothe sense of time of the field device such that reading a time valuefrom the time stamp does not require scaling of the time value.
 21. Themethod of claim 18 wherein the step of calculating adjustmentcoefficients comprises: calculating a frequency ratio between the localclock of each field device and the master clock of a time master device;determining whether the frequency ratio is within adjustment boundaryconditions; and calculating the adjustment coefficients as needed foradjusting frequency of the local clock.